Research Scientist (Robotics)

**About the company:** AI Robot Association Bunkyo-ku, Tokyo AI Robot Association (AIRoA) is a non-profit advancing AI-powered robotics through open datasets, foundation models, and collaborative platforms. While Japan has strong robotics roots, embracing global talent and perspectives is essential for competing and accelerating progress in humanoid robotics. Read more **Responsibilities:** Designing and building scalable data collection systems that operate across hundreds of humanoid and mobile robots. Developing semi-autonomous teleoperation systems that ensure low latency, high controllability, and minimal operator workload. Creating automated pipelines to deploy trained models and rigorously evaluate them in both simulation and real-world robotic platforms. Working closely with the Vision-Language-Action (VLA) team to seamlessly integrate and deploy cutting-edge models onto physical robots. Requirements Ph.D. in Robotics, Mechanical Engineering, Computer Science, or a related field, or M.S. with 3+ years of equivalent industry or research experience. Extensive hands-on experience with physical robotic platforms (e.g., mobile robots, manipulators such as UR5, Franka Emika, HSR, or humanoids like Spot). Demonstrated ability to control real robots using ROS / ROS2, including full-stack integration and deployment. Solid understanding and implementation experience in teleoperation, AR/VR interfaces, and leader–follower architectures. Strong programming proficiency in C++ and Python, with ability to contribute production-level code and perform system-level integration. Proven ability to work both independently and collaboratively in multidisciplinary research and engineering teams. Note: Candidates focused solely on theoretical research (e.g., reinforcement learning or explainable AI) without practical robotics experience will not be considered. However, candidates do not necessarily need to meet every single qualification to be considered for this role. Nice to haves While not specifically required, tell us if you have any of the following. Publication record in top-tier robotics conferences or journals (RSS, CoRL, ICRA, IROS, TRO, IJRR). Publications limited to CVPR, ICCV, or NeurIPS could be considered AI-centric and scored lower for this position. Experience implementing advanced control strategies on hardware (impedance control, force/torque control, admittance control, or model predictive control). Practical experience with tactile sensing or contact-rich manipulation. Experience leading or contributing to large-scale robot data collection or fleet management systems. Familiarity with robotic simulators (Isaac Sim, MuJoCo, or PyBullet) for training and evaluation. Experience integrating Sim2Real transfer or Vision–Language–Action (VLA) models onto real robotic systems. APPLY FOR THIS POSITION DO YOU NEED MORE INFO? ASK A QUESTION **Requirements:** Ph.D. in Robotics, Mechanical Engineering, Computer Science, or a related field, or M.S. with 3+ years of equivalent industry or research experience. Extensive hands-on experience with physical robotic platforms (e.g., mobile robots, manipulators such as UR5, Franka Emika, HSR, or humanoids like Spot). Demonstrated ability to control real robots using ROS / ROS2, including full-stack integration and deployment. Solid understanding and implementation experience in teleoperation, AR/VR interfaces, and leader–follower architectures. Strong programming proficiency in C++ and Python, with ability to contribute production-level code and perform system-level integration. Proven ability to work both independently and collaboratively in multidisciplinary research and engineering teams. Note: Candidates focused solely on theoretical research (e.g., reinforcement learning or explainable AI) without practical robotics experience will not be considered. However, candidates do not necessarily need to meet every single qualification to be considered for this role. **Nice to have:** While not specifically required, tell us if you have any of the following. Publication record in top-tier robotics conferences or journals (RSS, CoRL, ICRA, IROS, TRO, IJRR). Publications limited to CVPR, ICCV, or NeurIPS could be considered AI-centric and scored lower for this position. Experience implementing advanced control strategies on hardware (impedance control, force/torque control, admittance control, or model predictive control). Practical experience with tactile sensing or contact-rich manipulation. Experience leading or contributing to large-scale robot data collection or fleet management systems. Familiarity with robotic simulators (Isaac Sim, MuJoCo, or PyBullet) for training and evaluation. Experience integrating Sim2Real transfer or Vision–Language–Action (VLA) models onto real robotic systems. APPLY FOR THIS POSITION DO YOU NEED MORE INFO? ASK A QUESTION